Best/Worst Localizations of Last Decade?

[Don Fluffles]

I think we should continue to celebrate the best and worst localizations in games. The best ones can be a technical marvel or often bring out the best of the original script. The worst ones make Zero Wing look like classic literature.

So here's some of my best:

Best: Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC - XSEED & Carpe Fulgur

I waited so many years for this to release, and was afraid it wouldn't make it. Luckily, I was proven wrong. Trails SC has one of the most dense scripts in games, to the point of dwarfing many popular novels. This is due to a long main game combined with NPCs IN EVERY TOWN who have lines FOR ALMOST EVERY EVENT FLAG. Of course, not only did XSEED & CF do it, they did a damn fine job. Dialogue feels engaging and real funny when it needs to be. Even better, it allowed many more games in the Trails/Kiseki franchise to get localized. XSEED deserves several lifetime awards for this achievement.



Runner-Up: Puyo Puyo Tetris - SEGA

What a way to make a first impression. This was many people's introduction to Puyo Puyo franchise and its humorous world and characters. The franchise's been one of Japan's trailblazers of video game humor. The English localization team achieved the herculean effort of not only living up to it, but frequently surpassing the original. I haven't laughed this much in a game since Portal 2.

I mean, how can you beat lines like these:

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And now we have Puyo Puyo games releasing westside up the BAYOEN!

It's only a runner up due to a few mediocre dub performances and some boring, inaccurate name changes (Diacute == Diameter + Acute != Diamond Cutie). I mean, if they had to censor Satan's name, why not go with something sillier - like Satin, Suh-tahn or Sutton - rather than "The Dark Prince"?

Worst: Metal Gear Solid V - Kojima Productions
Yes, this is a hot take. Please read some of these lines and tell me they don't sound at least kind of weird or awkward.
"WHOOOOOO!!!!"
"She played us like a damn FIDDLE!" Yes, Ground Zeroes is part of MGS5. Fight me.
"We're gonna make them take back our past"
MGSV is not just controversial for what everyone's already discussed - the open world gameplay, entire cut chapters, David Hayter being cut, Quiet - but what still goes untouched is Kojima's insistence on the English dialogue staying "true" to his intent, whether or not it sounds like it was written by an English speaker. Jeremy Blaustein's ousting was one of the worst things to happen to the franchise until, you know, FucKonami and it's always shown in MGS since then. Personally, it's harder than ever to take the later games' story dead seriously.

 

[Deleted member 16908]

Persona 5's localization is just bad enough to drive me crazy reading the dialogue. There are tons of lines that make me think "nobody who actually speaks English ever talks like this".

 

[Annabel]

I've only recently learned that in the sea of Kingdom Hearts' convoluted spaghetti, a lot of its oddities can be attributed to the localization just muddling things further.

An example, "The power of waking" as we know it is just called "The power to awaken sleeping hearts" in Japanese, which literally tells you what it is and makes Sora's journey through KH3 a lot more clearer.

 

[Deleted member 4434]

Easily Taisho Alice lmao
Here's an article for those who like trainwrecks.

 

[sredgrin]

I refunded Gujian 3 on Steam because the English version is basically a robotic straight translation rather than localization. So that's probably the worst for me. Totally devoid of personality.

As far as big "it'll sell millions and get conference spotlights" it's probably Persona 5.

 

[Everywhere]

Fire Emblem Three Houses is pretty.kuch perfect. Probably the best localization ever.

 

[DNAbro]

Final Fantasy XIV's localization is fantastic. Compared to some of the direct translations I've read of the JP dialouge, I definitely prefer the English localization. Stuff like Haurchefant in Japanese just suck compared to what they did with him in English.

 

[ciddative]

Persona 5. Typos, honorifics, bizarre direction, really dampens any desire I have to finish that game

What a fucking tragedy that was.

It hurts

 

[Odeko]

Yakuza 3 makes the cut-off for a decade by like 2 weeks lol, but it's hard to not pick that one.

The actual prose wasn't terrible in the dialog, but the "localization" included removing huge swaths of the game including sidequests, whole mini-games, and many of the magazines and manga scans in the original release.

 

[Lotus]

Nier Automata's was very good I felt. In fact I knew it absolutely was when I played Persona 5 pretty much right afterwards, which was quite poor in comparison.

 

[Aexact]

Fire Emblem Three Houses is pretty.kuch perfect. Probably the best localization ever.

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I'm honestly pretty impressed. Lots of character types I'd find super annoying otherwise came across great by dialogue and voice acting. Even 500 year old dragons as little girls were more tolerable when they emphasize the 500 year old part.

 

[Disclaimer]

Best of the last decade? I'd put Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (PSP) on top, and Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (3DS) close behind.

 

[Rotobit]

Legends of Localization has covered some gems, here's one from the Switch eShop:

 

[Disclaimer]

Fire Emblem Three Houses is pretty.kuch perfect. Probably the best localization ever.

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I love Three Houses, but naw. It's not bad by any means, it's quite good especially considering the enormous scale of the script, but some of the dialogue comes off as wooden -- a stark contrast to Shadows of Valentia's more colloquial localization, where everyone talked like a believably real person.

There are also a fair amount of translation errors that've been discovered in the months after release -- and not in the sense of "this isn't 1:1 with the Japanese!" (I usually prefer localizations being liberal for the script's betterment), but rather in the sense of bungling the tone / intent of lines, with a negative or contradictory effect on characterization.

One small example would be in the Cindered Shadows expansion, where the loc has Edelgard call her father "useless" in a conversation with Constance, when in JP Edelgard apologizes for her father's powerlessness, but has great love and empathy for him. The loc is unduly harsh.

 

[Damn Silly]

So I'm generally not one to pick up on this type of things, but Persona 5 was not great. Just rather...stiff and stilted on the whole. Whereas something like Yakuza 0 seemed -- again, very much not an expert! -- very well done.

 

[Kalentan]

Final Fantasy XIV's localization is fantastic. Compared to some of the direct translations I've read of the JP dialouge, I definitely prefer the English localization. Stuff like Haurchefant in Japanese just suck compared to what they did with him in English.

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I feel like with FFXIV it's sort of cheating since Koji isn't just the English translation guy but also helps develop the lore and everything.

 

[Aexact]

Legends of Localization has covered some gems, here's one from the Switch eShop:

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Oh man I followed that link to author's breakdown of Sword Art Online Hollow Fragment. That was a fun read.

 

[DanarchyReigns]

Dragon Quest XI had an excellent localization. Along with Kid Icarus Uprising and Fire Emblem Shadows of Valentia.
Too many to count on the "worst" side. It's too easy to go after trainwrecks like Kitty Love posted above or the SAO game released in Asian territories (before it got a proper localization)
Ys VIII is a good contender though. A translation so bad that it actually made Japanese headlines.

I've only recently learned that in the sea of Kingdom Hearts' convoluted spaghetti, a lot of its oddities can be attributed to the localization just muddling things further.

An example, "The power of waking" as we know it is just called "The power to awaken sleeping hearts" in Japanese, which literally tells you what it is and makes Sora's journey through KH3 a lot more clearer.

Click to shrink...

Apparently, they also bungled Xehanort's final speech after you defeat him. In Japanese, it mentioned that he would end up exterminating all the people on the worlds before he recreates them. Though I might be wrong about that...
The localization messed it up and made people think "Xehanort was good all along" or something. Except no.

 

[Syril]

The best is Kid Icarus Uprising.

 

[Aexact]

Love posted above or the SAO game released in Asian territories (before it got a proper localization)
Ys VIII is a good contender though. A translation so bad that it actually made Japanese headlines.

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Ah, SAO game got a proper translation later, neat.

Same with Ys 8, which is the real notable aspect. The games that look as if they've been machine translated from Japanese are a dime a dozen but it's really something when they gotta redo the whole thing. I had played the Switch version and assumed it'd have the same level of awkwardness I'd expect out of PS2 NISA games but it was surprisingly good right down to item details. Apparently because it was the redone improved script.

 

[Solarc]

Off the top of my head, Tokyo Xanadu eX+'s localized script could've used 1 or 2 more editing passes, which is funny (read: sad) considering I've read it was worse in the original Vita release, I managed to reach the Intermission until it became too much for me, my only solace is that I played it thanks to library sharing so I didn't lose any money.

From the little I played of it, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth's localization was really stiff and literal, sometimes I couldn't understand what some of the characters were trying to say, not sure an extra editing pass could save that script.

 

[DanarchyReigns]

Off the top of my head, Tokyo Xanadu eX+'s localized script could've used 1 or 2 more editing passes, which is funny (read: sad) considering I've read it was worse in the original Vita release, I managed to reach the Intermission until it became too much for me, my only solace is that I played it thanks to library sharing so I didn't lose any money.

From the little I played of it, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth's localization was really stiff and literal, sometimes I couldn't understand what some of the characters were trying to say, not sure an extra editing pass could save that script.

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Yeah, Cyber Sleuth's was pretty bad. The lowest point is when they referred to the villain Eater as "Bakemon" rather than "monster" (bakemono).

This is Eater:

This is Bakemon:

 

[NazoNazoXLR]

Just when you think the industry in general has gotten better, mobile games and Steam VNs show up to the party to make sure that, no, in fact, bad localization is still in the house

 

[Stefarno]

I've felt that the Yakuza games from Yakuza 0 onward have had really top-notch localisations.

In terms of effort I thought it was a really nice touch that they localised the lyrics of all but one of the songs in Project Diva F 2nd - IIRC it was pretty hard for them to get approval for it too.

Akiba's Trip has a really great localisation too (helped by great VO) - far better than you'd expect for the type of game.

Off the top of my head, Tokyo Xanadu eX+'s localized script could've used 1 or 2 more editing passes, which is funny (read: sad) considering I've read it was worse in the original Vita release, I managed to reach the Intermission until it became too much for me, my only solace is that I played it thanks to library sharing so I didn't lose any money.

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I played the original Vita version and the spelling, grammar and formatting were all over the place - I presumed they'd rushed it out of the door before the Vita market died and that they'd sort it for the PS4 version but I guess not. The odd things was that for a game with so much text and dialogue the fundamentals seemed totally fine - like they did the hard part of localising and then skipped the easier part.

In general I don't like being overly negative on localisations unless they have some glaring/serious issues as pretty much whatever they do they get criticism from someone.

 

[VeggieBurger]

there may have been worse ones of the games i've played but Persona 5's was like the most impactful. It was a part of why i never finished it in two attempts. was mad disappointing especially because it wasn't in issue in Persona 3 or 4

 

[t26]

I've felt that the Yakuza games from Yakuza 0 onward have had really top-notch localisations.

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I would say even Yakuza 4 has a huge improvement over previous games.

 

[Tatsu91]

Yakuza 3 makes the cut-off for a decade by like 2 weeks lol, but it's hard to not pick that one.

The actual prose wasn't terrible in the dialog, but the "localization" included removing huge swaths of the game including sidequests, whole mini-games, and many of the magazines and manga scans in the original release.

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I'm sorry you cannot say Richardson is not only the worst English you have read but the worst dub you've ever heard and I am someone who loves 90s anime and I found it horrid. The rest of it is serviceable I'd say

 

[kurahador]

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth and Hacker's Memory on Vita has the one of the worst translation job ever. Alot of the dialogue feels two sentence long just to get to a point, full of typos and filled with these weird cutoff in some of the dialogue bubble.

 

[Sagadego17]

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth and Hacker's Memory on Vita has the one of the worst translation job ever. Alot of the dialogue feels two sentence long just to get to a point, full of typos and filled with these weird cutoff in some of the dialogue bubble.

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i wonder if the switch port cleaned this up abit?

 

[SirNinja]

Persona 5's localization struck me as unusually bad in several places. Not just the weird "Kamoshida was a scum" lines, but also the weird pronunciation of names, e.g., "sa-KAAH-muh-toe" as opposed to "saka-MOE-toh". (Yes I know that's how Atlus told them to say it. Too bad; it's still not the correct way.)

Dragon Quest XI had a stellar localization, as the mainline games typically do these days. So many wonderful puns without being overbearing (looking at you, DQ9...), and you could tell they really put a ton of work in with it. The village where everyone speaks in haiku had me floored.

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

Arc Rise Fantasia was last decade, so that seems like a strong frontrunner for the worst localization. Because man that is legendarily bad.

There are some good contenders for best. Off the top of my head, The House in Fata Morgana and Trails in the Sky the 3rd are really amazing ones.

 

[Solarc]

Yeah, Cyber Sleuth's was pretty bad. The lowest point is when they referred to the villain Eater as "Bakemon" rather than "monster" (bakemono).

This is Eater:

This is Bakemon:

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Never forget:

 

[DanarchyReigns]

Never forget:

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Hahaha that's amazing.

 

[Ckoerner]

Dragon Quest XI had a stellar localization, as the mainline games typically do these days. So many wonderful puns without being overbearing (looking at you, DQ9...), and you could tell they really put a ton of work in with it. The village where everyone speaks in haiku had me floored.

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I'm only five hours into DQ XI and I'm stunned by the localization quality. It's probably one of the best. The voice acting is also different than other games I've played. So much character and charm.

 

[mudai]

Reminder that the localization of Ys VIII was so bafflingly bad that NISA had to apologize for it and had to fix it with a patch. And it wasn't just the dialogue. They also mixed up item descriptions for example.

 

[Yabberwocky]

Seconding replies regarding great localization examples, eg. Nier: Automata, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, Final Fantasy XIV, Fire Emblem Echoes, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and Dragon Quest XI. I loved Drakengard 3 and World of Final Fantasy, as well. (Controversial pick: Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Nia's dialogue alone, c'mon!)

Uneven localization: Persona 5. The dub cast is superb, but the localization itself is all over the place, especially after P3 and P4 were so polished.

???!!! localization: Kingdom Hearts 3. I know the localization team have bizarre and convoluted source material to work with, but KH3's localization was still the weakest yet in the series, and I consider the localization work of KH1/CoM/KH2 to be genuinely good.

 

[Ruck]

i wonder if the switch port cleaned this up abit?

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It did. It's not perfect but they did take another pass at it. I'm not sure if any of the specific examples in this thread were fixed though, I just remember reading the loc team that did the second game went back to the first for the port

 

[SephLuis]

Never forget:

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Little guy is ready for DOOM.

 

[Unicorn]

Dragon Quest Builders 2 is up there for tops.

 

[Don Fluffles]

I've only recently learned that in the sea of Kingdom Hearts' convoluted spaghetti, a lot of its oddities can be attributed to the localization just muddling things further.

An example, "The power of waking" as we know it is just called "The power to awaken sleeping hearts" in Japanese, which literally tells you what it is and makes Sora's journey through KH3 a lot more clearer.

Click to shrink...

Hooo-lee shit! KH just won worst over MGSV.
How the hell did SqueEnix let such translation BS happen? Did Nomura pull a Kojima too?

 

[Zen Hero]

...Am I the only one that kind of doesn't really like Dragon Quest 11's localization? Not that it's super terrible, but it doesn't totally land for me. They try to get creative with it by having regional accents, or having characters speaking in haiku or rhymes, and stuff like that... but it just comes off as awkward and unauthentic to me. I feel they didn't quite have the writing chops to pull it off what they were trying to do.

(Maybe it's just because I have a pet peeve about people trying to write haiku but not actually following what haiku are supposed to be like)

 

[Apollo]

Judgment is a very impressive localization effort, with two separate scripts depending on which audio track you're using.

 

[Alandring]

Red Dead Redemption II is probably the worst localization in french.

I can understand why an indie developper or a middle-size publisher can pay for a localization. But even if Red Dead Redemption II has french subtitles, it isn't dubbed in french, which is an incredible disrespect with a game with a budget as huge as Red Dead Redemption II.

 

[Sun's Resting Place]

Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and Mask of Truth had some of the best JP > eng translations I've ever seen in any videogame, ever. Atlus hit it out of the park with that one, which is sad seeing all the weird fuckups that happened with the Persona 5 translation around the same time.

Either way, the Utawarerumono translation team deserves a goddamn medal for how endearing, fun to read, and interesting the translation for it was.

As I said before, Deception/Truth's dialogue was incredibly readable and flowed effortlessly, instead of being overly literal, stilted and dry like Persona 5 often was. Some lines made me laugh hysterically, especially with a few particular comedy sequences from Mask of Deception. Some lines were incredibly emotional but read as genuine - and probably wouldn't have worked if translated by 'super literalists.'

The XSEED team was expected in their quality, as I've been a Falcom fan for a long time and they've done an incredible job, but I wasn't expecting something of that level from Atlus for a super niche title after playing Persona 5 and not expecting too much.

Much love for Patrick and John for their role in the translation:

 

[Yasumi]

Persona 5 and Digimon Cyber Sleuth will never even come close to worst localizations of the decade as long as SAO exists. Like holy shit, this was released on the NA PSN store.

 

[shadowman16]

I'm sorry you cannot say Richardson is not only the worst English you have read but the worst dub you've ever heard and I am someone who loves 90s anime and I found it horrid. The rest of it is serviceable I'd say

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Andre cracked me up with his voice acting. Its bad, but I kinda love it. For a really bad dub I can't not go with any of the Shenmue games (especially the first two). Most of the voices are awful, the minor characters especially either sound bored, high or incredibly stupid. Some of the main characters sound almost passable, but still not good. And when most of the game is basically speaking to people, minor NPCs at that its just a lesson in pain to hear all the unique dialogue. Kinda glad for those Japanese language options in the remasters...
Also, aside from the hilariously bad voice acting, some of the lines of dialogue in the series make little sense - like when you lose at the raffle in the first game you get "especially as you brought merchandise" - like, what? What does that mean?

But 3 has some really bad localisation, or stuff that's just flat out wrong - like when you call home to Warehouse No.8 for some bonus conversations - in Shenmue 1 and 2 it has the same password (Fathers Heaven/Nine Dragons, Mothers Earth/Comrades) yet in Shenmue III they couldn't even manage to get the password correct with I think it was "Comrades" replaced with a completely different word in the English dub. Great localisation work there people... (its correct in the Japanese dub though). Shenmue 3 also has many more instances of bad sentence structure, and non nonsensical sentences (the end dialogue doesn't make a whole lot of sense either when you first read it)

Judgment is a very impressive localization effort, with two separate scripts depending on which audio track you're using.

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Great example. Yakuza as a whole managed to improve loads from 0 and up (meme stuff aside, but they are apparently patching those out of the remasters) and Judgment goes way above and beyond what most other localisations would do. Can't help but wonder if they are planning to do the same for 7 as well (which I'd imagine would be a nightmare in places with all the optional conversations you get in that game)

 

[Sun's Resting Place]

Persona 5 and Digimon Cyber Sleuth will never even come close to worst localizations of the decade as long as SAO exists. Like holy shit, this was released on the NA PSN store.

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For context: the 'black man' is literally referring to Kirito, who dresses in black, so the horrible translation uses 'black man' to describe someone in a black outfit.

The penetration refers to dungeon crawling, essentially, to get deeper into the dungeon. The unfortunate choice of the word 'penetration' to describe this action leads to some hilariously stupid translation hijinks.

 

[Count of Monte Sawed-Off]

While it is far from the worst, I just want to say that Persona 5 probably had the most disappointing localisation. Persona 3 and 4 both had some of my favorite localisations so 5 really sticks out as being bad (Final Fantasy 12 remains the best localisation by far).

 

[Foffy]

Tales of Hearts is pretty bad, as they made the decision to not have a dub track, meaning the new names they gave the characters are literally never said by the Japanese cast. That's just the start, however.

 

[aspiegamer]

That's a nice shout-out for PuyoPyuo, OP! I'm going to vote for the Disgaea series for similar reasons. It's hard to nail humor that well in a localization.
NieR:Automata's was so good that it was hard to tell it was originally Japanese, and the good voice acting accented it.

Sad fact: I actually played that SAO game just to specifically enjoy the horrible content. Every last line of every last conversation and every last text box of every type felt like it was run through the google translate of 15 years ago. Persona 5... sigh. I'm convinced they made it to sound like how Americans think Japanese teenagers talk. Not that I'd know, mind you, but it felt really forced.